Vehicle Drive Trains

[RickA]

We wracked our collective brains trying to figure out the wheels and drivetrain rules.

I like Far Trader's idea for trailers. Very timely thread as my merchant PC's who are currently marooned on post-apoc Darwin's World are in need of more cargo space than their wheeled ATV offers and have been making noises about fabricating a trailer.

 

[jonathonbarton]

Man, I get such weird images from reading this forum...

Like an unpowered *grav* trailer... It's just like a regular trailer, but when your air/raft lifts, it just sort of *dangles* from the hitch on the back...

I'm so easily amused...

(And Veltyen...it's a cool name, and very worthy of getting right!

)

 

[archhealer]

Ok, I hadn't thought of looking at trailers for inspiration here, that's great! Incidently, id T-20 THB, it states that trailers have only a drive train and chassis and nothing else, as opposed to just a chassis. I guess the idea there is that the drivetrain mostly comprises just the wheels and suspension, and that the transmission is somehow left for said, someplace between the power plant and the drive train.

Not being familiar with TA3,I must ask, is it for the most part similar in its approach/theory with T20, as far as design goes, such that bringing over an idea like this (No drivetrain on unpowered trailers/wheels) is practical and workable in T20?

 

[veltyen]

TA3 is a T20 supplement.

One of the better ones actually. Definitely worth getting hold of. Some interesting concepts and thoughts, good basic plug in example vehicles. Some tweaks of the design rules as well (such as for brushcutters and alternative tracked chasis rules) but basically just designs using the T20 design system.

Isn't a grav trailer just a dead-lift system such as helicopters use?

 

[archhealer]

OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh TA3, I didn't get the acronym, got it now. Yeah I read that. However, if I recall correctly, it does state that a trailer has a drivetrain. But now power plant. Hmmm

 

[far-trader]

The thing is while I can see that the "drivetrain" of a trailer is not a zero sum item the way I look at it is a trailer with no powerplant, no controls, no operator seat will have a top speed of zero kph by itself. And since multiplying the drivetrain needs by zero results in zero there is NO drivetrain either

Sure it will have the same type of motive power as the tractor designed to pull it but for the game we don't need to worry about the size or cost

Jonathon's comment about "an unpowered *grav* trailer... It's just like a regular trailer, but when your air/raft lifts, it just sort of *dangles* from the hitch on the back..." had me laughing It points out the absurdity of it but that's also how I see it working. The grav trailer by itself is inert but once "hitched" to a grav vehicle with the proper power it lifts and follows along. Though veltyen's idea that you haul loads as dead lifts with grav vehicles is not a bad one either.

I did design a powered grav trailer once that wasn't physically connected to the air-raft, it followed along with it's remote control slaved to the air-raft

And there was a hand-held remote to use it as a cargo sled at slow speeds. Just another possibility.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh TA3, I didn't get the acronym, got it now.

My apologies for not specifying the acronym

I usually do when the answer is to a newish poster. Thanks for the coverage veltyen.

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by veltyen:
TA3 is a T20 supplement.

One of the better ones actually. Definitely worth getting hold of.

Oohhh a complement. Have to bask in this for a while.

 

[archhealer]

Ah HAH! I just figured out a way to handle non-powered wheels, for four wheeled vehicles with a two-wheeld drive train.

In TA3, it specifies how to calculate the size/expense of just the wheels as seperate units, in order to use enlarged wheels/tracks isntead of more to get the same off-road performance. So, since that means a drive train of X size has wheels of roughly Y size in Vls, if you don't enlarge the wheels for the extra (non-powered) wheels and then divide the requreid tired volume by four wheels (THe actual number) instead of two, you have the same handling as a two-wheeled vehicle off-road.

In game terms, this would mean that if you lost a non-powered wheel, you do suffer the penalties to control checks, but NOT the loss of thrust, as opposed to if you lose a powered wheel, you suffer both.

Anybody see any holes in this? I think it works rather well...

 

[tjoneslo]

I think this would work fine.